


stay

by Missy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Evil Dead (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Action, F/M, Humor, Monsters, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:00:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reverse chronology of a meeting that will change two lives forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mochas N Mayhem (KoohiiCafe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoohiiCafe/gifts).



> A quick warning: this fic contains a brief refference to attempted rape of one character, a male minor, upon a female minor character. If you find this subject triggering, please avoid reading the body of this fic.

**Two Years:**

"The moon's hanging awful low in the sky tonight, isn't it busty...I mean Buffy?” The smooth skin Ash had been resting his cheek against rippled with an abrupt laugh, and he shifted to frown up at his wife.

She lay against the lush stack of borrowed pillows, her blonde hair in a wild disarray framing her face. “Corny one-liners won’t get you in my pants, romeo.”

Ash smirked and deliberately shifted his hips against hers, making Buffy hiss softly against his shoulder. “Feels like I’m already there, blondie.” She deliberately yawned and stretched, shifting her hips in return, causing Ash to suck in a breath. He played with a lock of her hair. “Up for round two?”

She lowered her lids, facial features going slack. “Nope. I’m pretty tired after carrying you up all those stairs by myself...”

Ash pushed himself up on an elbow. “Hey, that wasn’t my fault!”

Buffy glared back at him, the corner of her mouth tilted slightly upward, a joke forming in her mind. Ash tried to cut her off. “I tripped on a leg…”

“A leg?”

“It wasn’t MY leg.” He glanced over his shoulder, back toward the barred doorway. Even though they’d emptied they place of vampires and Deadites and the cross-species of Deadite Vamps, he didn’t quite feel comfortable using the bed of their one-time queen for a tryst. “We’re alone, right?”

She shrugged. “My Buffy senses say it’s safe. But you never know. The wallpaper could jump up and eat us.”

Ash’s head swiveled back toward her, and Buffy's eyes glimmered up at him wickedly.

“You,” Ash declared, “are gonna get it, little miss slayer.”

She just smirked up at him and gestured with the tips of her fingers. “Bring it on.”

And bring it he did, until the moon gave way to the sun and the world was flooded with light again.

 

 **A Year And a Day:**

The agreed on only one thing about the wedding they were planning: It was going to be held at high noon. Otherwise, Ash didn’t give a damn about the arrangements, as long as it ended with them getting married. Buffy took over the arrangement with her usual classic yet feminine sense of style, and Ash trusted that he wouldn’t be horribly embarrassed in the process.

His biggest duty – outside of planning a bachelor party for the ages – was to pick out his own suit. He managed to find in a rack at the back of the menswear shop for half off the asking price. With pride, Ash sported it to the last fitting, witnessed by the entire bridal party, including the bride-to be.

It was Faith who had the most truthful question.

“Did John Travolta puke on you?”

That was when Ash decided – insofar much as he ever decided anything with Buffy – that they were eloping. Knowing she’d be pissed, he conned Dawn and Willow into bringing her on a bachelorette weekend to Vegas. Then he snagged Tony-From-Work by the collar, dragged him out on the pretense of a strippers-and-booze filled weekend, and set up a wedding in the Classique room at the Little Chapel on the Hill, right off the strip.

She didn’t put up much of a fight; all of those matching place settings and Jordan almonds must’ve been getting to her, too. When he finally saw her that night, they were both ready to get on with it.

She was gorgeous. It even got a “Wow” out of him.

Her nose wrinkled as she took him in. “Do you really want to get married in that?”

He looked over her long, swannish, pale peach wedding dress. “Do you wanna get married in this?”

“Yes, disco inferno,” she declared. “I want to marry you.” The smile was a shared one, a warm one, as they joined hands to meet the preacher. “’Cause the portraits are from the waist up.”

Ash gave up six strippers, a hot-oil pool and a whipped cream slide for that night, but it was all worth it.

 

 **Nine Months:**

He had played this over in his mind, how it would be, again and again.

He would hold up the ring.

She would go Deadite.

He would give her the ring in a glass of champagne.

She would go Deadite, kill him, and mug him of the ring.

He would take her to the mall and treat her to a shopping spree.

She’d go Deadite, destroy the world, find his soul in hell and kick his ass again.

Ash was in a bind. He had always been cocksure when it came to love, strong-willed in his aim and possessive of the women around him; Buffy was the first one to shake up his value system, daring him to see her as an entire person, not just a victim to be rescued and protected. If he screwed his up, she’d walk out without hesitating. But Ash knew, now that he couldn’t let her walk, that he’d rather not live a life separate of hers. The very idea freaked him out enough to make him plunge along heedlessly without looking back.

He decided to surprise her with dinner one Saturday, an hour before she had to go on patrol; candles, low lighting, the whole works. She was so appreciative of the surprise that she didn’t complain that the food was take-out from the S-Mart burger bar with wine from the alcohol aisle.

And he sure as hell didn’t complain that she was covered in vamp dust.

“Here,” he said, shoving a bouquet of roses at her.

She smirked and grabbed them up. “Neato. I didn’t know you were a roses kind of guy,” Buffy declared. She kept inhaling the scent of the bouquet, wearing that kitten-that-ate-the-canary smirk. Ash gulped.

“Yeah, well…uh…” he coughed. “Sit down.” He yanked the chair out and pointed to the padding. Still holding the roses, she did sit down, regal as a princess, and together they devoured the burgers and fries like two starving teenagers.

She was placid, amused, as he sent her occasional glances, fugitive thoughts of rebellion that sent sparks up his spine. Maybe he should fuck her on the table – maybe fucking her would take the edge off and the words would just slip out. But it wasn’t to be, because when they’d polished off the meal her cell phone and the house phone started ringing at the same time.

They shared a thrill of horror; it had to be Dawn, Dawn who was out with her junior-year boyfriend, a kid with a muscle car and a pencil mustache who caused Buffy no end of grief with his idiotic, macho blandishments. Ash had appreciated him, seen a piece of himself in the kid, and defended him to Buffy and their friends. Well, maybe he’d shape up and turn into something worthy. You couldn’t judge at that age; everyone was half-formed in high school.

He picked up the land line before Buffy could get her cell to work. “BUFFY,” Dawn quavered.

“No, kiddo,” he said, trying to remember what he used to do with Cheryl on nights like these. “It’s Ash. Do you need…”

She sniffled in his ear, a razor wire of static scraping his nerves. “Come get me.”

Buffy had hauled the scythe into the car before he could get a promise out, scribbling down a street name and number on the back of his good hand. But then again, he thought, blowing out the candles, words had never been his forte.

The chainsaw and the gun made interesting clanking noises as they knocked into her scythe all the way up to the Creeping Pines Motel. Two minutes later, Ash busted the door of room 333 down with his bare knee, finding Dawn sitting at the center of the bed, holding something green in her hand.

“He tried to…” she gestured desperately with her free hand, holding the slimy, resentful-looking bullfrog that had been her boyfriend. “And I said no SO many time, Buffy, but he wouldn’t…”

“Hey,” Buffy crooned, taking the girl in her arms, “it’s cool. Willow can fix this….and him, literally I hope. Stupid Kermit spell,” she muttered under her breath.

Ash eyed the frog silently. “Right, Kermit spell.”

Buffy shot him one of her ‘you’re not helping’ looks. “We’ll drive down to Willow’s, spend the night…” she caught Ash’s disappointed look and shot him a glare. He clammed up. Toing the line around these dames was always the best policy, so he just gave her a steady look back and watched as Buffy grab up the frog and then led them both out to the car.

Dawn awkwardly occupied the space between their weapons in the back seat of Ash’s Delta. “I didn’t interrupt anything…”

“Nah, frog princess. Nothing I can’t fix later.”

Buffy glanced at him, her eyes picking up the headlight’s glare. It was a ten minute ride to Willow’s apartment, and for once it passed by in utter silence.

Ash occupied a sofa in the living room while Buffy cloistered herself with Willow and Dawn in the redhead’s library. After some muffled discussion, Buffy emerged ten minutes later, looking exhausted. “She’s in trouble for going to a motel instead of the library,” Buffy declared, “and Willow’s gonna send him on a little ride to teach him the meaning of the word ‘no’. But everything’s okay, otherwise.”

Ash held out his arm. “Good enough.” They settled down side-by-side on the couch. “So…uh…I’ve got something important to say.” Ash followed that up with two seconds of dead silence. Buffy sat still, watching him. He cleared his throat again. “You know…you’re a good…quasi-mom.”

Her eyebrow rose. “I know you’re serious. You used a word that’s two syllables long.” Buffy stroked the edge of his frown, running a hand through his hair. “What, Ash?”

“Uh…” he sighed, tried again. “I’ve been…trying to think of how to do this. How you’d like to hear it most…”

“You’re doing fine,” she informed him. But silence filled the air once more. She nestled her face against his neck, and Ash inhaled the vanilla of her perfume.

“Let’s get married,” he said at last.

She stiffened in his embrace, tilted back her head. He waited for a rejection or a confirmation.

He received nothing but her kiss.

 

 **Six Months:**

He’d expected it to be volatile, half-wild, with broken furniture and busted lights. He’d expected to pound her into the floor. He’d expected to sweat.

Instead, they’d melted together on the sofa after a long night of stalking a cemetery. He could still smell the dirt on her, and the bile and sweat of their undead victims, the new Deadites/vamp cross-breed that had risen to plague them both. They were half-asleep after a long night of death, in need of comfort and warmth.

It was the easiest sex he’d ever had in his life.

Afterwards – when he couldn’t sleep – Ash lay in the light of her bedside lamp and held Buffy in his arms. She had part of him now, couldn’t shake her loose even if he wanted to.

“I think I love you,” he muttered. “Even if you’re half-baked.”

She smiled in her sleep, kissed his chest, and stretched her arm across his chest. “I love you. Even if you’re half-crazy.”

 **Four Months:**

He took her to the movies. Some stupid blood-and-guts sci fi movie drenched with alien blood, which Ash watched with an undisguised grin on his face.

Halfway through the picture, he noticed the look of bemused disgust on her face. “I think I need more popcorn,” she declared, before ducking out. He found her after the movie was over, blasting zombies in the arcade.

“So, uh…I guessed wrong?” He winced as the virtual Buffy sliced a hole through a swamp monster’s chest.

“Yep. I’m used to it,” replied Buffy, blasting the head off the horde’s leader and leveling up. _She may hate guns,_ Ash thought to himself, _but she’s damn good with them._ He was so impressed he almost didn’t notice the insult, and when it sunk in she was two lives down. It was a perfect time to show off his expertise.

“You’re holding the trigger wrong,” Ash interrupted. He wrapped his big hand around hers and paused at the sudden electrical jump of his nerves. “That’s your problem. You’ve got those tiny little fingers. Can’t draw quickly enough.”

Buffy glared up at him. “They’re strong enough to hold up my scythe.”   
He had paused in his hold, but his words made her pull back. “I don’t want to know how to hold a gun.”

“Why?”

“I think they’re bad news.”

“So am I, but you don’t mind holding me.” She had his index finger and thumb caught in her iron grip.

Buffy managed to let them both loose with a shake of her hand. “You’re only bad news if there’s a submarine sandwich lying around.” She whipped out the gun, blew the head off another zombie, and her avatar took a shovel to the head. She glanced quickly to the side, saw a little kid waiting beside the machine, wide-eyed at the screen, and held out the gun. “Here.” The kid leapt into her place and she turned toward Ash. “Want dinner?”

“When do I not?” Ash replied. Without further discussion, they headed out into the early spring evening.

Nighttime always made Ash edgy, and he kept his eyes on the street, tensing at every noise. Buffy didn’t say anything, but then she always seemed aware to Ash, lost in her own world of hyper-sensitivity. They made it to the restaurant, got a couple of sandwiches and headed in the direction of her place. They walked even though they were both aware of the danger of being out at night.

It was then that Ash looked up for a split-second and noticed the night sky. “Moon’s awful low in the sky. I wonder…” Before he could blink, they were besieged by two ugly-looking sons of bitches with fangy overbites and leather jackets. As Ash blasted a hole in the face of one, Buffy took out the other with a roundhouse kick and nailed it with a series of body blows.

“Need help?” he tossed over his shoulder – he was distracted, as even without a head, his vamp kept coming. He yanked the saw out of his holster and revved it.

“No!” she took it down with another kick, yanked a stake out of her pocket…and ended up with a face full of bright green goo. She gaped at the mess before it knocked her to the ground. Ash whipped around and took the monster’s arm off with the saw as Buffy sat regrouping and rubbing her jaw. “Okay, not a vamp.”

“Deadite,” Ash declared, extending a finger. Buffy’s face screwed up as she wiped the green goo out of her eyes.

A third figure – more female – leapt out of a trashcan and Buffy sprung forward onto her, nailing it with a series of punches. Ash was back on the first monster – he tried to jam the saw into its chest and a flood of orange-red half-coagulated blood poured forth. “Not a Deadite,” he concluded. “Buffy!” he kicked the first monster in her direction, ripping the third one off of her by slicing its arm off with the saw. She jammed her stake into its chest, and it promptly exploded in a pile of dust. Ash had already turned the first monster into a pile of twitching body parts, but by then the third one had recovered from the loss of its arm and made a charge.

He sliced it up, but the torso wouldn’t collapse. “Son of a…” he sputtered, taking a flood of black bile up the nose. Then Buffy lunged forward with the scythe and was rewarded by the gory explosion of the monster’s entire torso.

 

They sat blinking through the muck and gore, trying to right themselves. The recovery was predictably quick, and soon they stood over the twitching remains of the final monster. “Vamp or Deadite?” she asked, eyeing the leftover bits of the second monster.

He gave her a confused look. “I think it’s both. That isn’t possible…is it?”

“We have to ask Giles. If these things are breeding, we’re gonna have to get them where they live.”

“Great. I just got these clothes cleaned.”

She snorted in response. Buffy ran a hand through her pale-green hair and eyed the desiccated remains of the sandwiches. “And I think we have to make fresh plans for dinner.”

“Pizza?” he suggested.

“There’s a place in Upper Trad that delivers. I have the number committed to memory.”

He smirked. “You’re fun to fight with.”

“But more fun to date.” There wasn’t a question involved as she pecked his cheek.

He smirked wolfishly. “Definitely.”

 

 **Two Months:**

Ash had been hanging around headquarters more often than Buffy had anticipated. It was starting to be an annoyance, though fortunately not a skeevy one.

She finally confronted him while he was sitting in front of the hall’s fireplace, working diligently on his metal hand.

“Ash?”

He grunted.

Buffy tried again. “We need to talk about something.”

“In a minute…” he glared at the metal hand, played with the joints of it.

“Ash, just…look at me.” He glared up at her. “I know it’s weird, being dumped twenty years away from where you started…”

“Nah. I hated Walkmen and Crystal Pepsi.” She watched him steadily. “I’m all right.”

“Are you…”

“I’m. Fine. Damn. It.”

“You know I don’t believe you, right?”

Ash grabbed her by the shoulders. “Just…” he let out a sound of frustration and clutched her close to his body, planting a kiss on her lips that was hard, demanding and near-brutal. She smacked him until he let go, leaving Ash to stare and pant at Buffy in an oddly predatory way.

“Get out,” she demanded flatly.

His eyes narrowed meanly. “Fine. I’ll get my own place here,” he replied, already standing up. “Don’t let it be said I took your charity like a little baby.” His metal hinges squeaked as he raised them to gesture, the fingers lying limply. He glared at them resentfully. “Damn tin can hand…”

“Let me help?”

Ash sat back down, grumbling, extending his hand, a lion with a thorn in his paw.

She sat there, screwing the ratchets tighter on the hand while he sat and rubbed his lip, glaring at her. “Why did you kiss me like that?”

He stared into the fire. “I’m sorry. You’re the hottest piece of legal eye candy in the joint and I’ve been going a little crazy being cooped up in this hen house.”

She rolled the screwdriver between her fingers. “Is that all it is?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not because we, oh, have so much in common that it’s kind of eerie?” She held it like a weapon, making Ash shudder.

He looked at her; for once he had to look up instead of down. His dark eyes flashed but he didn’t say anything else.

“Get out if you want, Ash,” she said.

“What if I don’t want to go?” he asked.

Buffy turned around to watch him watch the flames. “Are you sorry?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry enough to take me out? Your treat?”

“…Maybe.”

She smiled. “Stay.”

 **One Week:**

It was a good, if quiet, holiday season at slayer hq. Willow had fun playing mother hen to the entire brood of slayerettes; families – to say, the ones who had accepted their daughters as-is – ran underfoot, and the entire place smelled of hearty, delicious cooking.

Buffy sat separate of the happy group; Christmas made her feel like an awkward outsider, reminded her of the absence of her mother and the loss of the familiar environs of California. Dissatisfied in the hours before her nightly patrol, Buffy roamed the halls of the hall, looking for something to set her hands to.

Unexpectedly, it was Ash she found…perched on the icy stoop outside of the guest quarters, leaning against a gargoyle.

She tossed open the window. “All right?”

He clutched his chest and glared at her. “Jesus! You scared the shit out of me.”

“Really? It looks clean to me out here,” she remarked, glancing sarcastically at the concrete around him. It was an uncharacteristically mild December afternoon, and she could comfortable sit on the pavement in her jeans and a sweater as she squirmed through the open window and sat down beside him. “What’s wrong? Don’t like our beer?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the beer…or really anything.” Ash said. His arm was wrapped around the gargoyle, his eyes far-away and distant. “It’s…the first Christmas I’ve spent without Cheryl.”

“Cheryl?”

“My little sister.”

Buffy watched him. “Was she one of the Michigan five?”

He glared at her. “Yeah. She was the one that melted on me.”

The wind whipped up, whistling through the eaves. Buffy shivered and Ash automatically moved a little closer. “You can call home if you like. It’s on me.”

He shook his head. “There’s no one left there who’d recognize my mug. My dad’s in the clink, and mom…” He shook his head.

“What?”

“Dead five years before Cheryl went.” He said the word remorselessly, quietly, letting it plunk into the air between them. ‘Dead’, as if it meant nothing. But she recognized the tone, the self-protection in his eyes.

“My mom died too.” The words were quiet, drained of emotion.

“Oh,” Ash said awkwardly. They stared at the wilderness before them, uncharted, half-frozen, foggy. “That…sucks.” He offered, the words pried reluctantly from the depths of him. “It was cancer,” he added.

“I’m sorry.”

Ash didn’t say anything, watched his feet. “First time I’ve been solo on a Christmas night in years.” Then, resentfully, he added, “don’t you have someone sparkly to rub up against tonight?”

She frowned at him. “If you’re talking about Spike and Angel, they’re both history. Angel has Cordelia and Spike…it didn’t work out.”

“Maybe you need a guy who doesn’t just get hard for you a week out of every month.”

Her features twisted. “Eww. Forward much? It was a mutual thing with Angel. I told him I wasn’t finished baking,” she explained. “And Spike kind of died and then didn’t tell me he wasn’t a ghost. So now…”

“You’re a single blob of dough?” Ash filled in the question.

“Yep. And I like it that way.”

“Right. Okay,” Ash said, yawning. He reached behind them for the window, then rolled himself through the opening. “I’m gonna get some of that turkey Willow was roasting. See you in the hall?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. Suddenly she was the one in a broody mood.

“Night, cookie.”

She glanced over her shoulder as Ash squirmed through the casement. He noisily thundered into the room, grunting and cursing as he hit the floor. Typical Ash.

Buffy smirked as she recognized it.

 

One Minute:

Buffy and Willow found him on the bottom of a pile of bodies, the only thing moving in the hell house. The two of them had been forced to dig him out, limb by limb, until he surfaced with a roar and a thrash, his eyes wild.

Her hands were on the scythe, and Willow’s hands glowed blue with magical force. His hands went up, self-protectively.

“Woah…easy now…I don’t mean you any harm…” He looked a look at the blood-smeared walls and whistled. “Didn’t think I did that much damage. Think they have an undead Laundromat somewhere in this joint?”

“All of this was you?” Buffy asked. Willow stood back, looking vaguely nauseous.

“Yeah. Who wants to know?” Ash asked.

“Buffy Summers.”

He cocked his head at her, and it was then that she noticed the chainsaw that took the place of his right hand. They’d get to that, later. “Name’s Ash. I kick demon ass.”

She smirked confidently back. “Me too.”

 

THE END


End file.
